A Small Room For Big Ideas

The working area, which merely consisted of a small room in 2010, has changed from year to year and become an innovative and flexible learning area under the name of ideaLab. This change and transformation means not only the construction and use of a physical area, but also the realization of an idea. It stands for a transformation in our ways of working, studying and thinking, and also in students, teachers, parents, curricula, and many other variables that make up a school environment — transforming the entire school into a learning area.

ideaLab is a learning area that is centered around students’ learning, problem solving and collaboration skills. As a learning and living space where our students demonstrate their potential before university and choosing a profession, ideaLab inspires us all. This is the inspiration and culture that leads the Hisar Community to re-think education and to re-design learning environments. 

Teaching strategies, curricula and learning environments constitute a powerful combination for a better learning experience. In this respect, “flexible” is the keyword:

• Flexible Curriculum
• Flexible Learning Environments
• Flexible Learning Styles

This is how teachers and students alike have the chance to focus on exploring and learning more. IdeaLab is a study area created for all students who want to work on programming, robotics, graphic design, multimedia, electronics, 3D design, entrepreneurship and innovation, application development, and prototyping.

ideaLab, which is used for all CS courses and projects covering different disciplines, houses materials that support national and international competitions and activities, as well as STE(A)M materials students use to realize their individual and group projects. It is used as a working and living space for Computer Science teachers and students alike, allowing for continuous learning. This area is designed in a way to be always accessible to students.

A Journey From Teaching To Learning

The most powerful aspect of ideaLab is that teachers and students work together with the same enthusiasm to create a new learning environment together to deliver a project that grows, develops and transforms with them. The passion for learning among students has grown day by day since the launch of this area and students have begun to manage their own time, learning materials and processes.

In ideaLab, our students work on a number of interesting, garage-type projects of various sizes and technologies, including arcade games, drone works, face-emotion recognition devices, IoT projects, RaspberryPi, Arduino, and Microbit. Our students regularly participate in, and host, many local and international projects, conferences and hackathons, thus having the opportunity to realize their potentials and dreams. The projects realized by our students at ideaLab contribute greatly to their university life. While they continue their education at selected universities such as MIT, CMU, PRINCETON, STANFORD, and UPEN, they benefit from their portfolio and experiences acquired in CS at Hisar School. Our graduates maintain their connections with ideaLab and support many students and projects as mentors.

Living, Changing and Transforming Learning Environments

Students studying in these areas enjoy invaluable learning achievements, take responsibility for their own learning, and realize that learning is a process including the steps of Make, Fail, Learn and Repeat. Our students’ passion and motivation for learning is what pushes ideaLab to develop and grow every year in line with existing needs every year. ideaLab continues to develop as a living learning area by diversifying to cover the A-B-C block areas ideaLab Multimedia, ideaLab Fabrication, and ideaLab.